Smart’s Wallaroo won the Commonwealth Jubilee Art Prize in 1951. In an interview he recalled the process of gathering material for the painting: ‘I had a little sketch book, and a box of watercolours and I made a few notes … The first one was just a colour note of the yellow beach with the rusty coloured seaweed and lots of dark rocks ... While I was making this ten-minute sketch two men carried a little boat out to the water ... Then I walked along the beach and found a strange sort of breakwater. It was made of old oil drums ... In the town about half a mile away, I found two interesting old buildings ... so in they went, into the sketch book ... By now I was beginning to feel some of the charm of Wallaroo. I embarked on a more ambitious job, a largish watercolour and ink drawing ... After this last study I felt I could leave Wallaroo and return to the city and digest all the things I had seen.’
